CHAPTER 6

RONAN’S POV

The world had tilted sideways, and I was still trying to find my footing.

I stood there in front of Declan with my hand still extended from our embrace, and I could feel the blood draining from my face even as I forced my lips to smile. Mira. The Luna. The woman I had spent the night with. The woman whose name I had not known until now. She was standing right in front of me, looking at me with those same warm brown eyes that haunted my thoughts, and she was wearing the face of my best friend’s wife.

But Declan was oblivious.

He clapped me on the shoulder and laughed, the same easy laugh I had known since we were boys, and he said something about how long it had been and how much I had changed. I nodded and said something back, even though I was not sure of what I said because my mind was still stuck on the way her lips had felt against mine, the way her body had moved beneath me and the way she had whispered in the dark.

“I want to forget.”

And now I knew why.

I followed Declan inside the pack house because I had no choice, because I could not run, because I was the Alpha of Stormcrest and I had a role to play. The dining hall was large and grand with long tables filled with food and pack members who watched me with curious eyes. Declan introduced me to the elders and warriors and their mates, and I shook hands and smiled and said all the right things while my skin burned and my heart pounded and my eyes kept finding her across the room.

She was sitting at the main table, next to Declan, with a calm expression on her face and her posture straight like she was not falling apart inside. She was good at pretending, that I could tell. She had been pretending for three years, and I understood that now because I had seen it in her eyes when she had said that she wanted to forget.

She wanted to forget her life. Her marriage. Her husband.

And she had chosen me to help her do it.

Declan guided me to a seat and poured me drink, something dark and strong, and I drank it because it gave my hands something to do. Then, he talked about the old days, about the pranks we had pulled and the fights we had won and the girls we had chased, and I laughed at the right moment and asked the right questions while my mind played the same loop over and over again.

She is wife. She is his Luna. She is the woman you held in your arms.

You slept with your best friend’s wife.

I kept seeing her face under the morning light, the way the sun had caught her cheeks and the way she had looked at me when I said that I had enjoyed last night. She had called it a mistake and I had told my self that it was just one night. No names and no strings attached.

But now there was a name. Mira. And she belonged to someone else. My best friend.

After what felt like hours, I could not take it anymore. I stood up and excused myself, saying I needed air, and I walked out of the dining hall before anyone could stop me. I found a courtyard at the back of the pack house, which was a quiet place with a fountain and stone benches and the sky open above me, and I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

Then I heard footsteps coming from behind me.

Oh Moon goddess…. not her. Please not her.

And it was not her. It was Silas. He looked at me with concern and when he reached me, he did not speak at first. He just stood there and waited.

Then I opened my eyes and looked at him.

“What is going on?” He asked finally. “Talk to me. This is not you. You have been uncomfortable since you came here. What is the matter?”

I almost laughed. What is the matter? Everything. The whole world just flipped upside down, and I was standing in the middle of it, trying not to fall.

I groaned and turned away from him and pressed my palm against the stone wall. The coolness of it grounded me, but only barely.

“Even if I told you,” I said quietly. “You would not believe me.”

“Try me.”

I looked back at him, and then glanced around to make sure we were alone. To make sure there were no shadows, servants or guests listening.

“Do you remeber the lady I told you about?” I asked. “The one I took from the club? The one I spent the night with?”

Silas nodded his head slowly, no doubt wondering where this is going.

I took a deep breath and let the words fall out. “It is her. Mira.”

He frowned and asked, “which her? Which Mira?” Then he gasped and whispered, “please do not tell me it is the Luna.”

I held his gaze and could feel the weight of what I was about to say crushing me from the inside.

“That is what I am saying right now,” I said. “She is the one.”

Silas stared at me for a long moment. His face turned pale with every passing second. Then he let out a breath and shook his head slowly and said in a voice so weak that it was barely a whisper.

“What the fuck!”

The words hung in the air between us, and I could not argue with them. Because that was exactly what I was feeling. What the fuck had I done? What the fuck was I supposed to do now? And how in the hell was I going to look at my best friend again knowing what I knew?

I groaned again and turned back to the wall, then I leaned my head once more against the cold stone, because I did not have any answers.

And I was not sure I ever would.